The 2024/2 EXARC Journal brings you eight reviewed and five mixed matter articles. All the articles are open access to allow for free exchange of information and further development of our knowledge of the past.

The reviewed articles come from far and wide. The majority of the articles come from Europe with two from the United States. Luc Bordes’ article is dedicated to the evolution of throwing sticks. The article by Alexander Whitehead, Anthony Sinclair and Christopher Scott talks about the use of experimental archaeology in research of the pathogenic properties of bifacial butchery tools during the Middle Pleistocene. Marie-Elise Porqueddu, Nuria Castaneda Clemente and Javier Baena Preysler investigate the technical gestures used in mining flint. ‘Hay is for horses’ by Rena Maguire and Robert Johnson tests the hypothesis that post-Iron Age bridles in Ireland could have been made of straw and rushes. Those are only four of the eight articles. The others are dedicated to classification of archaeological open-air museums, Roman baking, Roman metalworking and Etruscan weaving.

The mixed matters section contains an obituary for Andy Kurzweil, the adventures and experiences of three Romanian archaeology students in archaeological open-air museums in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. There is a book review of Experimental Archaeology: Reconstruction of Material Heritage of Lithuania II. Finally there are two articles documenting the RETOLD project.